Basic streaming of a 1080i 5.1 audio OTA program from the Tablo appears to max out at about 12mbps on my network. Often it’s less than that. External streaming services like HBO or whatever might be higher on some plans/titles, but I’ve still not seen much above 18-20mbps. “Real” 4k with HDR and Dolby Atmos can easily exceed 100mbps, but there are very limited sources out there at this bandwidth.
WiFi can be troublesome for any streaming if it throttles or drops during certain times. My experience is streaming likes consistent, reliable performance for extended periods. Ethernet might even be slower than wifi in certain situations (modern wifi tech can far exceed 100mbps ethernet), but importantly for streaming it’s more steady-Eddy.
I do use a USB-3 1gig ethernet adapter on my main Sony tv, and can get pretty much all of my 500mbps internet plan over this connection. Very steady and reliable, and never a bottleneck for streaming.
Don’t need the “free” version. I use the paid version for work.
Yeah my signal strength is good. Interference is low and outside of the Tablo TV Roku app crashing where it completely reboots the Roku Streambar and only with Kirk 7.1 content, everything else is solid.
Internet service is Fiber 940Kbps up and down on speed tests. Testing shows little to no jitter or latency. Video conferencing is solid, VoIP is solid.
And….
The Tablo TV is solid when I use iOS, even with the KIRO 7.1 content, but it plays through the glitches that crash the Streambar.
Interface for Tablo TV is also lightning fast on iOS.
So my plan is to look at an Apple TV. I am going to try the USB Ethernet adapter for the Roku, but I doubt that the crashing will stop.
This. I see it all the time between FireTV Stick, GoogleTV, and my 4 different model/brand tv tuners. When the OTA signal is “perfect”, there is no difference in these various devices/platforms. In the “real world” of OTA interference (weather, competing RF, etc), some platforms are “stable”, and some get tripped up. Causes things like audio out of sync, freezes, etc.
We have a bit of heavy weather in our area right now, and are watching the ABC news via OTA on the Sony Bravia 8 tuner. The GoogleTV + Tablo App on this same TV can’t handle the little bit of “trash” in the signal that the built in tuner has no issue with.
Right. But the OP has no way to set his Tablo to use the best of the three KIRO transmitters. Tablo does not allow manually adding stations. It doesn’t even show what RF channel it chose.
Edit to add: If you really wanted to help the OP you could volunteer to look at the logs on his Tablo to see what RF channels it is tuned to.
There are solutions to limiting which transmitters (RF channels) the Tablo sees. The best option IMHO is the Televes Smartkom.
While marketed as an antenna combiner, it is also very helpful as a highly selective digital filter that allows the user to choose the RF channels distributed to the in-home coax from each of its multiple antenna inputs. It works fine with just one antenna, especially if it is picking up duplicate feeds from different towers and you want to pick a preferred one to “show” the Tablo.
Alternatively, a highly selective directional antenna can sometimes be used to capture the desired tower/transmitters while rejecting duplicates if they are off axis.
Even better would be to combine multiple directional antennas with the Smartkom and then create a custom RF channel plan for in-home distribution.
I agree it would be nice if the Tablo provided a bit more technical info and some user settings to address issues like this. I’m just offering another potential way to solve the problem. And yes, it costs money.
It seems to me there should be some sort of standardized approach for sorting out channel scans. Over the years I’ve seen many different approaches for various devices such as TVs and DVRs. Some pick the “strongest”, some pick the “first”, and some even show all the duplicates.
Since Tablo already creates a list of what it finds, it would be nice if this list was 1) comprehensive including duplicates and 2) had a couple of additional columns to show transmitter RF frequency and a more granular signal strength/quality indicator. Then you could just pick what you want. My Sony Bravias have this more granular information which is helpful for choosing which virtual channels to include in your final lineup. Sadly, not so with the Tablo.
Perhaps most vendors choose not to do this to avoid confusing casual users, and to present the illusion this stuff is simple and automated. It may very well be for some situations, but not all as you have discovered.
Here in SW Utah it has been a huge issue for me since I live between 2 antenna farms with exact duplicates of all the virtual channels on different RF transmitters. I started with an omni directional antenna and my channel scans were a s___ show. I put in a Televes Avantx digital filter ($400) and “fixed” my 100% duplicates issue by simply only including the RF transmitters I wanted. Then I figured out I could do the same thing with a highly directional antenna. Now I have both. Live and learn I guess.